


tiger lilies

by xxpaynoxx



Category: Football RPF, Real Person Fiction
Genre: AU, Angst, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Temporary Character Death, this has to be one of the saddest things i've written for neymessi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-01 02:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6498085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxpaynoxx/pseuds/xxpaynoxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now, all he remembers is tiger lilies, those stupid <em>fucking</em> tiger lilies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part i

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wortfee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wortfee/gifts).



> so this work was inspired by the fabulous nea (wortfee)! basically, hanahaki disease makes someone cough up flowers when they suffer from unrequited love. The only way to heal it is to remove them, but the removal also takes away the memories of love you have for the person.

_Love isn’t fair._

Neymar doesn’t remember a time when love _was_ fair to him. Love has driven him into the ground in everything he can possibly think of; he only just forgot about Oscar and the mess he went through until he finally said he was done and walked out on him. Although, love to him means so much more than what other people think.

Love means long FIFA games together and drunken declarations of truth and smiles and happy faces and an Argentine national team jersey slicked to his back in a dark hotel room. _Love_ means _Leo_ to him, and how ironic that those two things start with the same letter and both hold the power to destroy him. Because _love_ for _Leo_ means a woman with long brown hair and tanned skin and kind chocolate eyes paired with a white smile and two babies at home. _Love_ doesn’t mean _Neymar_ , he knows this, and when he first coughs up those orange petals, his heart sinks.

Now, all he remembers is tiger lilies, those stupid _fucking_ tiger lilies.

They’re almost beautiful, but he stops himself as he sees the droplets of blood staining the petals, because there’s nothing pretty about coughing up an entire fucking plant, there’s nothing pretty about being forgotten for someone else, there’s nothing pretty about not being loved in return.

The most tragic part, he thinks, is that he used to love those flowers. They were the flowers in the middle of the kitchen that his mother would pick on Sundays before breakfast. Now, he can’t even look at them without clenching his fists and trying not to cough them up. They’re all over his house, too, in bottles and trash bags and vases, hidden in closets and dusty corners. He’ll find them in his pockets too, in his sweatshirts and track pants, hastily shoved inside so nobody will take notice.

Nobody has, until one day in training where he’s running and running and running and then he’s on the floor, the cold dew wetting his cheek and a fucking tiger lily sitting in front of his face. He squeezes his eyes shut then, and he hears footsteps and he opens them to look into the big blue eyes of Gerard Piqué, who’s leaning down and running his thumb over his face.

“Ney,” he whispers, twirling the flower in his fingers, and Neymar wants to run again, wants to run away from the look in Geri’s eyes and the hurt in his voice, but he can’t because his body won’t let him.

He coughs up another flower and groans.

**….........**

Geri won’t stop asking who it is. Neymar is honestly surprised, because how the hell does he not know? Who else could it fucking be on this team? His name, _Leo_ , it’s always on the tip of his tongue but he never says it, just coughs again and again. More flowers appear. He’s running out of places to hide them. His track pants are ruined, he can’t get the smell out. He throws them away and says he lost them and gets another pair for free.

He’s not allowed out of his bed anymore. It’s not like he wanted to, anyway. Leo smelled like Antonella’s perfume today when they hugged at training, and it smelled like the flowers in Neymar’s apartment. Actually, everything smells like tiger lilies these days. He’s going insane.

Geri stays with him, holds his hand, and just sits there through it. He’s like the rock in the storm, the one thing that never seems to change. He talks about the clinic in Madrid, talks about the surgery he could get and “I’d pay for it, if it made you live a little longer”, and the fire in Geri’s eyes makes him feel like he’s burning.

It’s probably just the lilies again.

But he can’t forget Leo, he says. “I can’t forget someone I have to play with, someone who I have chemistry with,” and he’s damn right because he can see the fight dim in Geri’s eyes before he grabs his hand, and his voice is dangerously low and it feels so loud in his massive bedroom.

“What about Luis? What about the fans, the team, your friends? What about _me?_ Are we not important enough to you? Fuck Leo, you can forget Leo, I’d _destroy_ Leo if it meant you’d be okay!” he says, and suddenly they’re both crying and Geri’s face is inches from his own and they’re so blue, so goddamn blue, so unlike Leo’s big brown eyes and Neymar wants to kiss him.

He doesn’t because he doesn’t want to cough a fucking flower in his mouth, so instead he uses his voice, albeit raspy and barely making any noise.

“I’ll think about it, alright?”

Geri nods and leans his forehead on the side of his bed, letting out a heart-wrenching sob that shakes Neymar to his core.

**….........**

He doesn’t think about Madrid.

Instead, he decides to forget about Leo. And he almost does; he spends all his time with Geri instead of Leo, and he ignores the hurt looks that the striker sends him as he ducks underneath of Geri’s arm.

The flowers have disappeared, the petals wilting in every jar in his house. The ugly orange has been replaced with blue, mainly the blue of Geri’s eyes. They’re electric, especially when they’re right in his face as he screams at him on the field or late at night when his chest is hovering centimeters above his own, his lips ghosting over his.

And then he’s running, running and running again around the field, and he trips and falls and smashes the side of his face on the concrete. He can feel blood pooling in his cheek from where his teeth bit into the flesh, and he rolls over to see Leo sprinting over to him.

Leo’s hands are almost on his chest when he recoils, shaking his head. “S-Stay _away_ from me,” he says shakily, and as if by magic Geri is there, heaving him to his feet. Neymar doesn’t look back as Geri walks him to medical, but he knows Leo’s crying.

Geri doesn’t say anything to him, just cleans him up and wipes the blood away.

They go home together and end up making out on the couch, Geri’s hands everywhere underneath his jersey and his boxers and Neymar completely forgets all about big brown eyes and small pale hands.

 _If this is what love is,_ he thinks as his head rests on Geri’s bare chest, the defender’s snores in his ear, _I want it for forever._

  
**….........**

Of course, forever doesn’t last very long in Neymar’s world.

It’s not even a week later and he’s in the bathroom, and _he can’t breathe._

He’s suddenly gotten worse. The flowers reappear again, back where they were before, and in vast numbers. Leo tries to engage him, tries to find out what's wrong, but Neymar won’t have anything to do with him. He keeps smelling Antonella’s perfume on Leo’s jacket and it makes him want to throw up all over the field. He makes it to the bathroom just in time, and pukes in the toilet until his stomach quiets.

There’s fluid all over the floor, and scattered amongst it are the lilies, the fucking flowers back to reap their revenge. Neymar is shaking, holding onto the sink and not looking into the mirror because he knows what he’s going to see.

Dead brown eyes, lips dripping a mixture of saliva and blood, torn jersey.

He knows what’s going to happen; he knows he’s going to die. He remembers Geri talking about it, how if he ever did do the operation, he would live a little longer. But he doesn’t want to live longer without Leo; he wants Leo, he wants to hold him and press their lips together and imagine what they taste like.

So he slides onto his ass on the tile floor, forehead pressed against the cold white basin, and wipes the remaining petals from his lips and _remembers_.

He remembers Leo’s radiant smile, remembers the way he felt in his arms when he caught him after a goal, remembers how light he was and how when he pressed his lips to his cheek it felt like a burn. He remembers _that night_ , where Leo growled in his ear and marked him all over his chest and pressed finger-shaped bruises into his hips, so thick that he could barely read his tattoo the next day. He chooses not to remember what happened after that, because he wants to hold onto how happy Leo was, not the way he had said _this was a mistake_ when he had walked out of his house.

He hears the door open as if from another universe. Everything seems muted, and he knows it’s not long now until the flowers choke him.

Someone’s hands, large and shaky and warm, press against the back of his neck and thumbs resting just below his ears, and he’s forced to look up.

He sees Geri, his eyes wide and glassy.

“Your eyes are so blue,” Neymar slurs, pressing his hand weakly up to his cheek, because even when he’s crying, Geri’s eyes are blue. They’re so fucking blue, they’re like electricity from those shitty superhero shows that Neymar sometimes watches when he’s home alone and bored out of his mind.

Geri is crying, and his hands are shaking and he’s saying something, but Neymar can’t hear him. So he focuses on his lips, focuses on the feel of his large hand covering his own and holding it in a vice-like grip, focuses on the words he sees Geri’s lips spell out.

_Don’t close your eyes._

But Neymar does anyway, and he feels his hand go limp. And that’s when the darkness parts and he sees Leo’s face, blurred but coming into focus, massive and brown and squished at the sides as his lips break into a smile that’s so big it looks like his face is going to explode, moving closer until they’re touching noses.

Neymar can breathe, he realizes, and his eyesight is going white as Leo’s eyes slide shut, and he murmurs something before he closes the gap between them.

_“I love you.”_

Everything is white, and he feels like he’s finally flying, like he’s finally free.


	2. part ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part ii.

When the white light clears, he’s back in the bathroom.

He’s still coming around, but he can smell the scent of blood and feel the warmth of it still on his chin. He must have passed out next to the sink when he stopped breathing, the cold linoleum of the floor pressing against where his shirt is riding up against his back.

He doesn’t see anything at first, just white, before he starts seeing vague shapes; there’s the mirror, blood spattered across it like something right out of a crime show; the sunlight from the small window just below the ceiling; and the outline of a jaw, soft brown hair; a face. It’s moving in slow motion, and Neymar has to blink before it comes into focus.

It’s Leo.

It’s Leo, and he’s _crying_.

Neymar tries to move, tries to say something, but his body feels like lead, like all of his energy has been spent throwing up and collapsing. He can hear Leo, his slow and soft voice muffled and shaky, and he can faintly feel Leo’s trembling hands cupping his neck and pressing against his chest like he’s trying to push the life back into Neymar’s body.

“Fuck, Neymar, please don’t leave me, please don’t leave.”

Neymar wants to say something, but his vocal cords don’t work. Nothing works. Nothing fucking works and he can’t tell Leo he loves him, he can’t tell him he’s okay and he’ll stay. He can’t tell him and it’s infuriating him and-

“Leo?”

The voice is familiar and distant, but it gets Neymar’s heart going as he sees Leo look over towards what he guesses is the door, and he gulps. “Geri, I don’t know what happened, I just came in here and I found him like this, and I don’t know if he’s still-”

Geri cuts him off, coming into Neymar’s limited line of vision with balled fists. He looks like he’s shaking, and his jaw is set so firmly that Neymar is convinced he’s biting the inside of his cheek so he doesn’t start screaming at Leo.

Because Geri had been there for Neymar when Leo didn’t. Geri had loved Neymar when Leo hadn’t.

“This is _your_ fault.”

Leo starts, and Neymar feels his hand jolt against his chest as he looks up at Geri in shock. “Me? What the fuck did I do?” he snarls, and that’s when Geri’s face contorts into a rage as he snatches Leo up like he’s made of air and pins him up against the wall, Leo’s legs dangling down as he tries to fight Geri’s tight grip on the front neck of his training shirt.

Neymar has slid onto his side, facing away from the imminent fight, the linoleum floor pressing cold against his cheek. He’s lying in a pool of blood, he can taste the chilled copper liquid on his tongue, and he’s facing a tiger lily petal covered in red. He wants to reach for the petal and tear it to shreds.

No coughs come.

It’s then that Neymar realizes he hasn’t coughed. His breathing is even and regular, even though it was so light that Leo couldn’t feel it. He can’t make his body move still, but instead he listens to Geri’s shakin, furious voice.

“It was _you_ , Leo. This whole thing was your fucking fault. Neymar _loved_ you, man, he loved you so goddamn much. He gave you his heart, he gave you his entire fucking soul and you just threw it away like it was nothing. How _dare_ you think that you can just come in here and try to save him after everything you’ve done to get him here?”

Leo is quiet, too quiet. There’s no rustling, just the low shaking voice of Geri speaking right in Leo’s face.

“But I did. I _do_.”

And there it is.

Neymar’s eyes go wide as he hears Leo’s quiet voice echo throughout the room, and his body finally twitches to life as he gasps in huge gulps of air that he had previously been denied. He hadn’t taken a full breath in ever since the petals had fallen from his mouth, and it feels delirious.

Geri gasps and Neymar feels hands on his shoulders, turning him over onto his back, and there’s Leo, brown eyes wide and glassy and a massive smile on his face as he cups Neymar’s face. Geri’s face is directly next to him, grabbing Neymar’s hand and holding it in his two larger ones.

“How are you feeling?” Leo asks, and Neymar doesn’t even know what to say. He just stares at Leo, stares at his flushed face and plump lips and the line of ginger stubble on his chin, and he can’t get over the fact that Leo loves him.

“Y-You _love_ me?”

Leo nods, and Neymar surges up and connects their lips, and Leo’s hands scrabble to grab at the back of his head and his shoulders and Neymar feels light as he shakes in Leo’s strong hold.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Leo whispers, smiling against his lips, and it is.

There will be time to talk about Geri and Antonella and everything else, about all the other problems that could surface from this.

But for right now, Neymar is in love, and for the first time, it doesn’t hurt anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that. I couldn't kill Neymar; I just couldn't.


End file.
